A WEBCAST OF IDIOTOLOGY BY KLIM KOZINSKY

The video will be available till May 6, 7:30 p.m. (+3)

In Russian with English subtitles.

Klim Kozinsky’s debut production is based on two works: Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and Gottfried Leibniz’ Monadologie (1714).  

Leibniz formulates the model of an ideal world, at the center of which lies a soul, or its more simple form – a monad. Achieving an understanding of this world by means of reason, the soul develops and gradually rises to its Creator. But no philosophical dogma is capable of embracing the world: in its efforts to embrace life, it destroys it. The clash of ideas and reality give rise to war.

Prince Myshkin, being either spiritually blind or a genius, is charmed by the idea of unifying two worlds: the world of divine law and the earthly world. Myshkin tries to change the nature of things,  to arouse the soul’s memory of divine principles, thus violating the natural course of things. 

The play does not include Leibniz’s text per se although his ideas are woven into the musical structure of the performance. As such, one pattern - the twists and turns of Dostoyevsky’s novel - is woven into another that is drawn from the world of philosophical ideas and palindromes. The bible which Aglaya Yepanchina holds in her hands is merely a phone book.